TRM: time, risk, money
Prioritization is hard, and it gets harder the further up the leadership chain you go. I created TRM to bring clarity to leaders, and to anyone else in a business, so more people can make good decisions.
TRM analysis looks at a decision three ways, and it works at any level. With it you can compare any project, idea or task against any other by the value it creates, whether it comes from marketing, sales or engineering. And anyone can do it.
Getting started
TRM takes the traditional cost-benefit analysis and puts structure on both sides, so costs and benefits can be compared everywhere. I replace cost and benefit with one word: value. To gain value, you have to give up value. The goal is to get the most value for what you spend. The trick is turning value into something you can measure.
Three pillars of value
Value breaks down into three pillars: time, risk and money.
That may be hard to believe. If it is, read how I reframe broader values into these three.
The method
Time
Time is the first of the three TRM pillars. How I measure it, and where it hides in things that don't look like time at first.
Risk
Risk is the second TRM pillar. How I score it by impact and likelihood, and how I show it shrinking without pretending it reaches zero.
Money
Money is the third TRM pillar, and the most straightforward of the three. How I measure it so it compares cleanly with time and risk.
Create your first TRM analysis
Four steps to your first TRM analysis, with how I set priorities for my own department in 2023 and how one line of direction changed them.
Identify customers and patrons
Everything you do has someone who gains the value and someone who pays for it, and usually each party is both. How to list them.
The value of different kinds of work
Platform teams are not "the X technology team". Who DevOps, SRE, IT and Data actually serve, and why that framing changes priorities.
Rethinking value in TRM terms
How to put things we value into time, risk and money when it isn't obvious. Quality, entertainment and design, worked through.
TRM visualization
The TRM triangle shows what something gives its customer in time, risk and money against what the customer gives up to get it.
Case studies
Case study: cost-cutting prioritization
My department had to cut vendor costs in 2023. How TRM told a bad cut from a good one, and when a cut wasn't the point at all.
Case study: my job search
A job search is a business, with marketing, sales, product and finance. TRM scores showed me where my time was going to waste.
Case study: platform engineering and IT
The problem that led me to create TRM. How I reported platform and IT value in time, risk and money, and how each team lines up.
Case study: businesses
Whole businesses seen as TRM triangles. What social media, insurance, retail clothing, real estate agents and farming give you, and what they cost.